The Hateful Above

We were not meant to come here.

Unlike the comforting confines of Araea's caverns and tunnels, the Surface has no ceiling and no limit. Early explorers first assumed the rusty-colored skies were some distant and vast dome, but were horrified to see day shift to night. There was no ceiling, only a limitless and hungering void above their head, with hateful stars glaring down at the world. Mankind has since been certain that the abyss above holds them in personal contempt, and events have done little to disabuse them of the notion.
Danger descents from the star, from meteorites whose impact have scarred every part of the world to strange and hostile creatures. Sky Tentacle reach down from the maelstrom above, seizing prey to an unknown fateamong the stars, and Meteorite Ticks ride their namesakes like cocoons, sprouting once on Araea, to hunt and kill and stranger things still.

The Surface
Blighted and barren, the Surface of Araea is a hostile and alien world in which mankind are only visitors. There are many ways to die on the Surface, and none are pleasant. The beasts fear neither sword nor spear, while the poison of Blight shrouds entire continents with choking venom.
Were it not for the fame and fortune to be found here, mankind would likely never visit.
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On strange nights, when the skies burn with ill-omens and color, people go missing only to return hours, days, or even years later but with little recollection of where they were. Only the shadows of haunting visions and nightmares remain - but their bodies carry memories for them. Many return with metal marks of unknown make imbedded on their bodies; between three to six pointed stars, the size of an open hand. Scars, old and new, hint at the treatment they may have recieved in their purgatory. Some return with limbs missing, severed by impossibly precise cuts, or replaced with ones made from strange material. Mutations, missing organs, broken minds, and worse is sometimes the fate of those that go missing, and some never return at all.
These Star-Marked are cursed, and most believe that even associating with them is bad luck. No one wants the gaze of the stars to narrow down on them, too. Only hints and whispered rumor give any form to the mysterious nightmares that abduct these poor souls. Some worship them as devils made real, in hopes of staying their hand or some exchange of power, but most simply fear them.

Sky Fever
To people accustomed to a finite world, endless skies can overcome even the most hardy soul. It is known as Skyfever, when someone is gripped by the infinite vistas above and overcome by it. Symptoms are dizziness and vertigo, growing to a sense of restless agitation. Melancholy scar many of those afflicted, or lingering and existential dread of the idea that something can be so... Endless.
The solution suggested by many: never look up. There is nothing good there.

Days are no safer, with the sun's harsh light scorching exposed flesh in the short term and infesting the unlucky with lesions and cancers in the long term. Worse still, parasitic sun-sprites ride the beams of light to attach themselves to unlucky victims with little warning. Some go sun-mad, becoming incoherent and disoriented under its gaze, or stare into it until they go blind. It is agreed that those with blonde hair, similar in color to the wretched sun, are more susceptible to this curse, and they should shave all their hair before venturing out onto the surface to avoid it.
Regardles of hair color, experienced explorers all suggest venturing at night instead of day. The relative dark is kinder to eyes accustomed to caverns and though the sun is replaced by several other celestial spheres, their light is dimmer and less hateful. These moons are thought to be the seeds of the sun, and may blossom into blighted brightness of their own in due time.

The night sky is no static thing, but mutates and shifts. Blooms of prismatic color open and close, nebulas drift across the sky and encase the world during season of storms. Veils of shifting light and color ensnare those who look upon it, casting them into a world of vivid, stark hallucinations. Entire settlements have disappeared, mistaking the looming disaster for harmles beauty. When the stars draw close, the ground shakes and cracks, pebbles and rocks shoot upwards like rain in reverse and disappear into the distance. On occasion, whatever pull exerted fails before it can consume its bounty completely, and the rocks fall back down with terrifying force. It is a small blessing that it cannot left humans, who feel only a strange sense of weightlessness and drift.
Everyone knows the Surface to be wrong, and the hateful stars above prove it. Even children born beneath those blighted lights feel it in their bones and suffer for starting their lives there.

That is the sky above Araea, best avoided by decent folk and left to those madmen who call themselves 'adventurers'.